


and sing them loud, even in the dead of night

by Roses_and_rain



Category: Inn Between (Podcast)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F, Friendship/Love, Light Angst and Fluff, Marriage Proposal, and the time she lost her memories, i'm not sure how much they've talked about it, kind of?, mentions of fina's death, spoilers for the first two seasons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:19:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27638771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roses_and_rain/pseuds/Roses_and_rain
Summary: Fina's been a little withdrawn lately, and she's picked up a fondness for old love songs somewhere along the way. Her friends endeavor to find out why.
Relationships: Fina & Betty & Velune (background), Fina Butterbuns/Betty Triguut
Comments: 6
Kudos: 6





	and sing them loud, even in the dead of night

**Author's Note:**

> title from twelfth night. enjoy!

_Prologue_

Late into the night before they faced the Bone King, when conversation was fading but no one was ready to leave, Fina picked up her guitar. 

Betty listened, while her eyes grew heavy, as Fina played halfling folk songs, human war ballads, some of the faster-paced hymns she’d picked up from Velune - anything to keep moving, Betty thought. Eventually, though, her tempo slowed and her voice settled into a melancholy lilt.

“When the sky turned dim and sullen, when the smoke obscured the sun  
When doubt and dread had fallen on our company one by one  
You turned to me, my darling, afraid but smiling still  
And said, when this is over, oh what a tale we’ll tell.”

Fina looked up at the end of the verse and met Betty’s eyes. In the torchlight, her face was hard to read.

“Better not finish that one tonight,” Betty said with a glance in Meltyre’s direction. Fina didn’t play it often, but Betty had heard it enough times to know that its daring heroes didn’t end well.

The strange expression lingered for a second on Fina’s face before she smiled brightly, only a beat late. “You’re right. Probably time for all of us to turn in anyway.”

Meltyre, Velune, and Sterling headed toward their rooms, but Betty sat waiting as Fina carefully put away her guitar.

“You think that’s what tomorrow’s going to be?” she asked. 

“The song? No, no - it just came to mind; you know how it is.”

“Hm.” Betty studied her.

“What,” Fina said, teasing now. “You think I’m not ready for a fight?”

“Of course not.” It was the only answer Betty could give, though it didn’t stop her from worrying - Fina wasn’t fragile, she knew that, except - except sometimes she was! Sometimes an enemy didn’t care about cleverness or charm and Fina was so small. 

“Okay then.” Fina gave her a trickster’s grin, quick and confident. “Don’t worry about me, sweetheart.”

Through the next few days, cursing herself for believing her, Betty kept thinking about that song. Fina hated leaving a song unfinished. _It just doesn’t feel right,_ Fina told her once. _Like letting someone down._

It takes a while, but Fina does play the song again. 

_Act I_

More than a year has passed since Velune brought Fina back, and they’re at the Goblin’s Head again, on their way to the castle to see Sterling and Meltyre. Fina’s performing tonight, not just singing for her friends - a small crowd of the inn’s guests has amassed around her as she spins out song after song in her velvety bard’s voice. The sky is darkening outside, but Betty guesses it’ll be a few more hours before they can get Fina away from her admirers. She never can resist an audience.

A light rain begins to patter on the inn’s roof, and for a moment the tavern goes almost silent as people stop their conversations and turn their faces up to the ceiling, as though the raindrops will drift down through it to sprinkle their faces. It’s been a long, dry summer. 

Chatter starts up again, and Betty looks back to Fina. There’s an odd faraway look in her friend’s eyes, and for a moment she seems not to notice the expectant gazes of the guests around her. Then Fina comes back to herself, flashes the audience a smile, and plucks out a new melody, the ballad that haunted Betty between Fina’s death and her resurrection.

Velune recognizes the song too, though Betty can’t tell if they remember the last time Fina played it.

“She’s been playing rather a lot of those old love songs, have you noticed?” they remark. 

“I guess,” Betty says, glad to be talking about the present. “She has been a little quiet lately.”

Velune hums thoughtfully. “Is anything wrong, do you think?”

Betty frowns at them. “Has she said anything like that to you?”

“No, no. I only wondered at the change. So many of those songs end in tragedy, you know, and I hadn’t thought Fina was fond of those.”

“She likes keeping old stories alive, though,” Betty says. “And she wouldn’t keep something important from us. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

_Don’t worry about me, sweetheart._

“But we can ask her when she’s done,” Betty adds. 

“Ask me what?” Fina slides onto the stool beside her.

“I was just remarking on your set list this evening,” Velune tells her. “A bit old-fashioned for someone so insistent on being ‘cool with the kids,’ wouldn’t you say?”

“I’m very cool!” Fina exclaims. “And I’m sure ‘Ere I Lose You’ topped the charts in its day.”

“What charts?” Velune asks.

“ _And_ is still a great song. Timeless,” Fina continues, ignoring the question. “Thanks, Tessa.”

The innkeeper places three bowls of soup in front of them and hurries off to see to the impatient looking elves at the next table. 

“I meant that it seems you’re favoring songs like it lately. Slower tempos, older styles? Lots of love songs…?”

“Most songs are love songs, one way or another,” Fina says, raising her eyebrows. “What do you mean?”

“I just wondered if anything was on your mind.”

“Just in a ballad-y mood, I guess.” Fina shrugs.

Velune doesn’t press the subject. “I suppose it’s a good thing we didn’t camp tonight,” they say instead, turning to Betty.

She rolls her eyes. “We could have handled a little rain.”

“Nope, gotta side with Velune here, sweetheart,” Fina jumps in, and Betty feels a little of the unease lift from her chest. She trusts Fina to tell her if there’s something she needs to know, but it’s still good to see her acting like herself. After her talk with Velune, Betty can’t help thinking that Fina has been a little withdrawn the last few days.

That’s still the case, Betty realizes, watching Fina project too much nonchalance as she quickly finishes her soup. After a few minutes she bids Betty and Velune goodnight and heads upstairs.

“Okay, you’re right, she’s acting weird,” Betty says. Velune nods. 

“Perhaps -” they say, at the same time that Betty begins, “I should -”

Velune chuckles. “Yes, I think you’d better talk to her. Goodnight, Betty.”

“Night, Velune.”

_Act II_

It’s been a long time since Fina’s had stage fright. Still, she finds herself pacing her and Betty's room with nerves to match any debuting star's.

“Maybe this is a mistake,” she mutters - say what you will about talking to oneself, Fina’s always preferred to think aloud. “I mean - is it worth it, the awkwardness if… and it’s not like anything would really change…”

The words ring oddly in her ears, not untrue and yet not quite right, and she pauses to consider them. 

Betty has been Fina’s best friend since… well, long enough for it to be a fact of Fina’s life. She’s not worried about losing Betty’s love over this. 

And there have been times over the course of that friendship - before the days of the party, when it had been just the two of them against a new restless tavern every week - when perhaps Fina had harbored the beginnings of a thought. The play of firelight on Betty’s face, the swift, confident movement that won her every fight, her rare raucous laugh. 

And then she’d think, why risk changing the best thing in her life? Besides, a little pining enriches the plot.

And then it changed anyway, when they met Velune and Sterling and Meltyre. Their family of two expanded suddenly in a way Fina had never anticipated… and it was okay. Better than okay, it was warm and wonderful, and in that new family Betty and Fina were still themselves. So maybe change could be worth the risk after all.

And in the midst of that change, there had been the awful day with the cockatrice and Betty frozen in stone and the sudden crushing realization that she could be lost just like that. When they’d gotten her back, Fina had tried to forget that fear, to drown it in the relief that flooded through her as she wrapped her arms around Betty, her Betty, whole and breathing. 

But that night, when she kissed Betty for the first time, the fear stayed with her, a shard of ice that pushed her towards the warmth of Betty’s arms. She kissed her like it was enough to keep them both there, safe, and tasted the sweetness of that lie in the eager press of Betty’s mouth on hers. 

It’s the lie Fina’s always telling - every time she recounts one of their adventures, as a duo or as a party - the people she loves are invincible. It’s a nice story. Her favorite. 

She thinks Betty buys into it too, sometimes, for all her insistence on honesty. Isn’t that why Fina’s around, after all - to weave their story? To set their work, their fights and failures, in the context of a grand narrative, to show them all how they fit into the world. The stalwart adventurers, ever triumphant, never dying… not for long, at least.

The door swings open. Fina must have been thoroughly lost in thought to have missed Betty’s footsteps in the hall.

“What’s wrong?” Betty asks. She walks past Fina to the bed, sits back against the headboard and crosses her arms. 

“What do you mean?” says Fina brightly, automatically, and feels a pang of frustration. It’s the answer of someone on the defensive, and Fina doesn’t need to defend herself from Betty. She wants to talk to her.

Betty is still regarding her with a skeptical expression.

“Sorry,” Fina says, chagrined, climbing onto the bed to face her. “No, there is something - not wrong, just - I wanted to ask you something. I’ve been thinking about - well, a lot, actually. Mostly - I know we don’t have a lot of certainty in this line of work, and - I mean, we chose that, I’m okay with that. It’s just - when I’m not certain of anything else - well, fey magic torture excluded, I guess -”

A shiver goes through her as she remembers clinging to half-recalled faces, struggling to call to mind the lullabies she'd known forever, and she falters. She'd thought she had a handle on that sort of thing. Betty takes her hand, and Fina grips her calloused fingers tightly.

“What I’m trying to say is - when I’m not sure of most things, I’m sure of you. I’m sure of us. And is that - are you -” Fina doesn’t know what’s wrong with her tonight. It’s been a long time since her words have failed her, but right now she can’t seem to get a simple sentence right. _It’s just one question, Fina. This is what you’re good at. Just talk to your best friend._

“Yeah,” Betty says. “Me too.” Her hold on Fina’s hand is firm and grounding.

“Okay,” says Fina. “So - I think I messed up by starting with, y'know, the inherent danger in our everyday lives, because what I really wanted to say is - I love you, and I want to stay with you. Always. And I know we can do that anyway, but... do you want to get married?”

Betty stares at her for a moment, and Fina swears she can hear her own pulse rushing. Then a smile breaks across Betty’s face, warm and amused.

“This is what you’ve been moping about?” she says.

“I have not been moping!” returns Fina gladly, mock indignant. The remains of her nervous energy linger, making her giddy. Betty shakes her head and pulls her closer.

“You have,” she insists, and then before Fina can protest further, “And of course I do.”


End file.
